PowerCorruptionLies

Bad luck! The trick at this junction, as with many like it is to check out which way the CCTV camera is pointing before deciding to take the shortcut! ;-)

If I can add my 10 pence worth of thought on these issues:- 1) Teenage and Youth Crime is not a modern phenomenon (read 'Brighton Rock' or watch 'Gangs of New York' both fiction based on fact!) 2) Vigilantism "a clip round the ear" will be no deterrent to those who are already engaged in a life of violence. Many of the kids engaged in mugging and bullying are doing so as a result of their backgrounds, broken homes where they may well experience violence and intimidation day in day out. In short, for those of us who have been fortunate to have been brought up by loving and supportive parents it is near impossible to put ourselves in the shoes of a child that has experienced none of this, has been brought in to the world by similarly ignorant damaged people and are therefore all to often condemned to simply live and repeat the cycle of abuse and fear. 3) Undoubtedly the media age in which we live, violent electronic games, gangster rap etc. all of which quite deliberately and aggressively marketed at kids, is intensifying the scale of the issue and "normalising" anti-social behaviour. Solutions? The perpetrators of these crimes are in many cases severely dysfunctional and emotionally damaged individuals, prison (or young offenders institutions) alone will not fix this, in fact the system is often causing more problems than it solves. The experience of 'Brat Camps' in the States is showing positive results, these kids need emotional and spiritual mentoring a long, expensive and resource intensive process. Put simply, as a society we must decide how much this matters to us and allocate resources accordingly. After all if billions of pounds can be found to build and run the Olympics, those same billions could have been used to fund the police, social services, sports academies etc. if ..., and it's a big if, the politicians who are supposed to serve us actually did that job, rather than serving themselves. Just my thoughts anyhow.

If I can add my 10 pence worth of thought on these issues:- 1) Teenage and Youth Crime is not a modern phenomenon (read 'Brighton Rock' or watch 'Gangs of New York' both fiction based on fact!) 2) Vigilantism "a clip round the ear" will be no deterrent to those who are already engaged in a life of violence. Many of the kids engaged in mugging and bullying are doing so as a result of their backgrounds, broken homes where they may well experience violence and intimidation day in day out. In short, for those of us who have been fortunate to have been brought up by loving and supportive parents it is near impossible to put ourselves in the shoes of a child that has experienced none of this, has been brought in to the world by similarly ignorant damaged people and are therefore all to often condemned to simply live and repeat the cycle of abuse and fear. 3) Undoubtedly the media age in which we live, violent electronic games, gangster rap etc. all of which quite deliberately and aggressively marketed at kids is intensifying the scale of the issue and "normalising" anti-social behaviour. Solutions? The perportrators of these crimes are in many cases severely disfunctional and emotionally damaged individuals, prison (or young offenders institutions) alone will not fix this, in fact the system is often causing more problems than it solves. The experience of 'Brat Camps' in the States is showing positive results, these kids need emotional and spiritual mentoring a long, expensive and resource intensive process. Put simply, as a society we must decide how much this matters to us and allocate resources, afterall if billions of pounds can be found to build and run the Olympics, those same billions could

*Bob* spot on with your dry wit observation! Personally I wouldn't buy a car from the kerb-side (the eBay generation!) but I'm all in favour of a little enterprise and the man's ingenuity in working round the endless strings of local authority red tape! As George Orwell said "if there is any hope, it lies with the proles".

I may be missing a trick here but surely the easiest way to deal with this issue would have been to "temporarily" close the pedestrian crossing at this point in the road (if my memory serves me correctly there are two alternative crossings within 20 metres or so of this spot). It seems that the root problem is that effective town planning would involve setting out the streetscape to allow for the free and safe movement of all modes of transit (people, cars, buses, bicycles etc.) whereas in reality much of the decision making by local government in these areas is "politicised" to meet an agenda (e.g. we are pro-bicycle and anti-car etc.) resulting in ineffectual results as town planners impose "solutions" that work in their political theory but fail in reality. In this case I'm sure that Southwark would find it politically unacceptable to contemplate a solution that might be conceived to inconvenience pedestrians (i.e. ask them to walk 20 metres to the next crossing) and hence we end up with a situation where all other modes of transit are disadvantaged (with the consequential negative impact on the local environment in the form of increased pollution, noise etc. and as some comments have indicated greater danger to cyclists who attempt to jump the resultant traffic queues.) Unfortunately, many of the services charged to local government a similarly blighted by such "politicised" thinking which results in their delivery being sub-standard. I remember reading the Walworth Road Project consultancy documents produced by Southwark in which it was stated that the leading factor in decision making were the views of the London Cycling Campaign. All very nice in theory until you remember that the majority of people travelling down Walworth Road probably do so by bus, not on a bicycle. As a result the narrowed road space (left behind after the pavements have been widened) means that in reality rather than a utopian space in which bicycles freewheel down empty streets we have the reality in which harried cyclists struggle along with a line of slow moving buses trapped in a crawl behind them (unpleasant for the bicycle rider and annoying for the bus passengers!) I am not of course suggesting that views should not be taken and considered from all relevant sources, however any decisions need to be lead by the practical needs of the situation (which in London, as I said from the outset means to keep everybody moving, freely and safely) not the utopian dreams of Ivory Tower planners. Afterall, as I believe the tag line of a Honda advert once ran: "aren't we all just trying to get someplace!"

I'm new to this forum and a Peckham SE15 (rather than East Dulwich SE22) resident and am surprised how may of you SE22 folks seem so keen to turn Peckham and Rye Lane in to a clone of Lordship Lane. Variety is the spice of life and whilst I agree that the litter and run down nature of some of the premises on Rye Lane can be untiddy, I personally prefer the character that the area has (like Electric Avenue in Brixton or Whitechapel Road in Tower Hamlets) to yet another string of Deli's, Coffee Shops and Trendy Boutiques selling a 'Life Style'! SE15 is a working class area (and not ashamed of it!) and so the mixture of shopping reflects that fact. So whilst many residents of SE22 are desperate to see the Iceland on Lordship Lane become an M&S or Waitrose and so excited about the arrival of Foxtons, for those on more modest incomes the availability of value for money basics is what matters and that is why Rye Lane is so popular and busy most days of the week. Plus, of course SE15 is cool whereas SE22 is not ... ha ha! But seriously, vive la diff?rence!